


the symbol of your love is time

by zenstrike



Series: you’re lucky that’s what i like [20]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, adam is so freaking weird, background klance, red makes a brief appearance as SHE SHOULD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-27 23:43:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16712293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zenstrike/pseuds/zenstrike
Summary: Adam goes home.





	the symbol of your love is time

**Author's Note:**

> here take this aldkfjalkdfjalkdsfj

  

    When Adam was thirteen-years-old, he and his mother listened to a news story over the radio while they drove to the store. He would remember very little of the story itself, but he would remember his mother saying quietly: “They suffer, and suffer, and for what?”

    And Adam said, “Ma?”

    And he would remember, very clearly and very loudly, his mother drumming her fingers against the steering wheel, and the shift of her braid on her shoulder as she tilted her head, and the downward turn of her lips. And he would remember, very clearly and very loudly, his mother saying: “I’m glad I don’t have to worry for you.”

    “Ma.”

    “I’m not intolerant. I’m empathetic.”

    Perhaps she was. And maybe he wouldn’t remember the story, but he would remember, maybe, that it was the first time he’d heard the word “queer” out loud.

 

    When Adam was eighteen-years-old, keeping his secret became suddenly a lot more difficult.

    “Most people call me Shiro,” said a young man with a wide smile and steady hands.

    “Do they,” Adam said drily.

    And Takashi grinned at him, and Adam took the first step to falling in love with him.

 

    When Adam was twenty-one, he tried to take Takashi home.

    “I can come with you,” Takashi said, squeezing his hand.

    “Just wait,” Adam replied, hiding his trembling hands in his pockets. “I’ll come get you when—”

    “Okay.”

    “Where is she?” cooed his mother when she answered the door, and she peered around Adam and saw broad, dark-eyed Takashi leaning against the car and looking out of place, already, in slow and small Lethbridge.

    “Ma,” Adam started, but she looked at him and he knew that none of this would go well.

 

    When Adam was twenty-two, his boyfriend—his partner—touched his shoulder while they mulled over frozen pizza prices, and Takashi said: “Hey, look at me.”

    And Adam did.

    And Takashi, the sap, got down on one knee and started to ask a very important question, and Adam panicked and tried to climb in the freezer.

    “Is that a yes or a no?”

    “In a fucking _grocery store_?”

    “Still waiting.”

    But Takashi already knew what his answer would be, just like he knew Adam would get too flustered to think.

    Because sometimes love is sure.

 

    When Adam was twenty-three, he met Keith. Or, his husband-to-be met Keith and came home and said: “A kid tried to steal my car today.”

    “What?”

    And, somehow, that was how a stubborn boy with a love for libraries became a vital centre of Adam’s universe.

 

    Other things happened that year. He and Keith read _The Hobbit_ together and Takashi didn’t sleep through most of it. Adam took Keith to the local library every second day and started watching this odd boy drag his fingers along the shelves and mutter titles to himself, when before Adam had spent hours dragging at the spines and counting the books that caught his own attention. Adam watched Keith and Shiro slowly bond, and he watched the way Keith’s eyes lit up when Shiro came into the room and the way Keith started trying to stand, a little, like Shiro.

    Just sometimes, Keith’d mutter when Adam teased.

    Yeah, just sometimes.

    And then there was this thing that happened.

    And, just sometimes, Adam wished he could hate Sam Holt for putting the idea in Takashi’s head but it wasn’t Sam who made Adam leave one grim weekend, and it wasn’t Sam who made Keith hide in corners because he didn’t understand what was happening, and it wasn’t Sam who made Takashi weather the proud mantle of _being the best_ and it wasn’t Sam who made the engine overheat before Takashi had even left the ground.

    But, still, just sometimes Adam wished he could pin it all on Sam Holt.

 

    Adam started counting his years by Keith’s.

And when Keith was nine, Takashi almost died and Adam left.

 

But maybe none of that matters now.

 

***

 

Vancouver was, objectively, lovely.

Adam grew up in windswept Lethbridge, where the skies opened up and swallowed the prairies and the coulees, and no one thought to implement a recycling program until he was well beyond “done” calling the city “home.” Takashi, a little more of a northern boy, would complain about the wind and Adam would scoff and remember the southern Alberta gusts that would try to sweep him off his feet and the warm relief and painful headaches that sometimes came with a chinook wind.

Lethbridge could also be, objectively, lovely. Adam thought he preferred Vancouver.

 

***

 

    The department rolled out a carpet of some sort of colour for him. Maybe blue. He couldn’t remember what the university’s colours were.

    The campus was beautiful. The sea right on its doorstep, and a forest as its backyard. One MA student and one PhD student showed him around and took him for lunch and the MA student awkwardly joked that Vancouver was the right place for a mixed race vegetarian to pursue something even tangentially related to Peace Studies.

    They were very sweaty and obviously eager to leave. Adam counted this as a point for the department, alongside the nice view he had of said backyard forest from his room and the general loveliness of UBC’s sprawling main campus.

    “Is recruitment tough for everyone here right now?” Adam said over lunch while the MA student clutched her fork and the PhD student sipped her beer. “Or is it just the Creative Writing department?”

    The PhD student gave him a twitchy smile.

    And the MA student looked very young.

    But neither of them gave him a straight answer and Adam supposed that everyone handled controversy differently. He supposed, too, that there was a very good reason that Takashi had specifically told him _not_ to bring said controversy up.

    Adam sometimes couldn’t help it. Maybe it was his version of sweating too much at the lunch table.

    By the end of his first full day and when he sat on his bed for his second night in Vancouver, Adam was tired. He walked about and admired the humid chill and the campus and the food he ate and the general—Vancouverness of Vancouver, and he wondered again and again what Keith would think of this, or what Takashi would say about that.

    He had a feeling that Keith wouldn’t mind Vancouver and he wanted to say so but it was hard to muster up language when things felt unsettled and unfocused between them.

    He met with the department head the next morning and he shook Adam’s hand firmly and smiled wide and he looked very academic in his sweater and with his crooked glasses and his promises of huge funding packages and research grants and travel proposals.

    But Adam heard wind in his ears and he thought: am I sure?

    “I’m not sure,” he said to the department head.

    “We can make you sure,” replied the department head with a laugh and a wink.

    But Adam just said: “No, I don’t think you can.”

    Maybe he was just done with lying.

    The department laughed again and sipped at his coffee and then put his mug down and said: “Adam, I think you’ll find our program—”

    But Adam just wanted to go home.

    How annoying.

 

    ***

 

    Thanksgiving.

    Home was filled with memories.

    He blocked them out so he could drive, but parking on the street in front of his mother’s little house—in front of his childhood home—made Adam’s chest ache and his stomach flip and his thoughts spin and spiral. And he thought about calling Takashi, because Takashi was so good at putting him at ease even now, of giving him the courage to keep going forward, of even just making him laugh.

    Adam got out of the car and counted his steps to the front door: one, two, three, four…

    He knew, like he knew that the sky was mostly blue and the sun mostly orange, that the door would be unlocked but he raised his fist and he knocked: one, two, three.

    This house was not his home anymore.

    His mother was smaller than he remembered, with grey streaking her dark hair and her glasses looking a little thicker than the last time he’d seen her. He thought he still knew her voice, even if only from the answering machine greeting before he left his rambling messages every six months just so she’d know he was still alive, just so she’d know that Keith was good and strong and brave and smart and Adam wanted to give him everything—

    He thought he still knew her voice, and then she said: “Adam.”

    “Hi,” he said.

    And she smiled and let him in.

    “Has something happened?” she asked, sitting him at the dining room table with coffee and cookies that he couldn’t help but devour. She moved slower, now, but she stood just as straight as ever and sat just as straight as ever. “Are you alright?”

    “It’s Thanksgiving,” Adam muttered and shoved an entire cookie in his mouth.

    “Yes,” his mother mused. “I suppose it is.” She watched him chew. He stared at the table. “Are you alright?” she asked again.

    “Yeah,” Adam said, his mouth dry from the cookie and his throat tight from swallowing too much at once. “Yeah. I’m great.”

    “And—Keith?”

    Ah, so she’d been listening to his messages.

    She’d remembered. She’d paid attention.

    He thought he might cry so he looked down at his coffee even as a smile quirked at his lips. “He’s great,” Adam managed. “He’s in university now.”

    “Time flies.”

    “Yeah.”

    They were quiet. His mother stole a cookie from the plate and nibbled at the edges of it.

    “Ma,” he said eventually and lifted his head and she looked at him and blinked her owlishly large eyes and looked so old and so firm all at once. “I’m leaving.” And when she didn’t reply he continued: “I’m applying for—uh—too many programs and maybe it’s late and maybe it’s not, but I’m—leaving. I’m going away.” He paused. “Further away.”

    She nibbled at more of the cookie. “Are you running?” she asked.

    “I don’t know.”

    “Okay.” She set the cookie down with a sigh and wiped delicately at crumbs on her lips. “Thank you for telling me.”

    And the longer Adam looked at her the more he thought that she meant it.

 

    ***

 

    Maybe the past mattered less than he thought.

    Maybe the only way forward was onwards and upwards and flight.

    Maybe—

    Well.

    Maybe the past mattered as much as he let it, as much as he let it bite at his ankles and weigh down his heart.

 

    ***

 

    Adam woke up on the Sunday and looked at the sunlight and felt the stirring in his chest and said: “Fuck Vancouver.”

 

    ***

 

    It hurt to be wrong.

    Like a punch to the gut. Like falling on your face. Like tripping down the stairs or walking into a door or vomiting until you were sick.

    And it buoyed him, maybe, to be a little wrong.

    And to be a little unsure.

    He rolled out of bed and crawled to the bathroom and threw up and dragged himself to his feet and wagged his finger at his reflection and said: “No more anxiety vomit.”

    Then he nodded, and he went home.

 

    ***

 

    It hurt, the day he woke up and realized that he didn’t love Takashi anymore. It hurt a little less, the day he realized Takashi didn’t love him anymore either —but.

    But no, there was still love. There was still something. It hovered between them, and it danced around the love they both felt for Keith, and the easy way they fell into a friendship Adam had never known he could have.

    There was a moment where they thought—where they could have tried—one night and then a morning of them saying “I don’t want this” and Adam leaving before Keith came home— But they had been so young, and Adam had thought he understood everything.

    He still dreamt about Takashi, but it was usually the Takashi of Before, Takashi so young and so vibrant like a memory. When Adam saw this dream Takashi, wandering in and out of his dreamscape, he let himself look, and remember, and feel the nostalgia all through his bones, and then he’d turn away and he’d carry on.

    At least—

   

    ***

 

    He tried to read on the train to the airport.

    He still wasn’t done the Dick novel.

    Ha.

    He tapped his fingers against the cover and he peered out the window and he watched Vancouver and all that name encompassed drift by. He thought he could still smell the ocean.

    But he felt the wind in his veins.

    He was early, but he couldn’t help it: Adam loved airports, loved the clean artificiality of them, loved the absurdity of it all. He felt confined in the domestic terminal, but the Vancouver airport was full of light and noise and water. Like a selling point for the city, like a leftover from the Olympics. He sat by a fountain and felt a little like he was in a mall in another reality, where everything cost triple the price and nobody was expected to look entirely human. He could step into a store and start speaking gibberish and someone would apologize for not understanding him.

    People were good like that, sometimes.

    Adam went through his messages. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for. Maybe nothing at all.

    He got up and did another loop of the terminal and returned to the fountain with coffee and sipped it idly and went through his messages again.

    And he realized he wasn’t sure what he was going to do next.

 

    ***

 

    “What are you afraid of?” Takashi had asked while Adam had fretted in the weeks leading up to Keith’s residence move-in day. “He’s not going far.”

    It had felt like an ending.

 

    ***

 

    It wasn’t the first, or the last, time that he’d been wrong.

 

    ***

 

    Reconciliation.

    Seeing Keith, grown and grown up.

    Seeing Takashi, healed and moving forward.

    Seeing his mother, and feeling the warmth of her touch and of her smile.

    And then looking at himself in the mirror and knowing that he could do this, if he wanted to.

 

    ***

 

    “What are you going to do?” his mother asked. “Where are you going to go?”

    “Anywhere, I guess,” Adam had replied and had the nostalgic sensation of disappointing his mother as she looked at him over the edge of her glasses and tapped her fingers against the table. “What?”

    “Nothing,” she said lightly, and she smiled. “I’m glad to see you.”

    “Yeah?”

    “Yeah.”

    It wasn’t an apology, but it was something.

 

    ***

 

    And suddenly it was just them.

    Adam was there to greet Takashi when he came back the weekend of the move-in, Keith-less and a little more wilted than either of them had expected, and they ate dinner together and didn’t talk about the silence in the room.

    “I miss him already,” Takashi admitted when he walked Adam to the door.

    “Told you,” Adam said with a smile and Takashi shook his head and when Adam was in the hallway by himself, he let his hands shake and he ran his hands through his hair and he took unsteady steps away.

    And because he was afraid he came back the next day, and it was kind of like Takashi had been expecting him, and it was kind of like they’d be alright—even without Keith.

    And there was a familiar terror to it all.

 

    ***

 

    “Something’s up with you guys,” Keith had said the summer before he’d moved in with his bright-eyed boyfriend.

    And Takashi had just sighed: “Keith.”

    And Adam had pinched Keith.

    And that had been that, for Adam.

    And that was how he decided he would leave.

 

    ***

 

    It hurt to be wrong.

    Like it hurt to realize, very slowly, that he was falling back in love with Takashi.

 

    ***

 

    But maybe none of that matters now.

 

    ***

 

    Adam dragged his fingers against the window and watched the world fall away and then watched the mountains drift on below and tried to soothe his roiling, anxious belly.

    Uncertainty.

 

    ***

 

    But maybe none of that matters now.

 

    ***

 

    And by the time the plane had landed again, he knew what he needed to do. And he hated that he had been wrong. And he hated how sick he felt. And he hated how lost he was.

    And he loved the sight of Keith, tilting his head and looking at him, with Lance just a step behind him.

    And he loved the way Keith smiled at him, like maybe somewhere along the way Adam had taught him to read his mind.

    “What?” Lance said.

    “Dinner’s cancelled,” Keith said.

    “Yeah, okay, but—”

    “I’ll come back another time,” Adam said. “Let’s get going.”

    “I don’t really know what’s happening.”

    And Keith touched Lance’s shoulder and said: “Don’t worry about it.”

    And Adam didn’t think of grocery stores or broken promises or arguments in the kitchen; he didn’t think of Before, and he didn’t think of After, and he started to think of Next.

    Because none of the rest of it mattered anymore.

 

    ***

 

    He moved on.

 

    ***

 

    The drive was long. By the time Adam was halfway into the three hour journey, the sun was mostly set and the sky was mostly deep, dark orange and deep, dark blue, and the highway was mostly empty. He usually loved a long drive: put on an audiobook and let the road fall away in front of him—perfect.

    He wanted it to be over, this time. He wanted to be home. He wanted to take a shower and wash the tiny dregs of travel-feel from his clothes and his hair and his eyes.

    Make a plan, Adam told himself.

    But making a plan sounded a lot like muttering to himself, and a lot of what he muttered to himself was: “Don’t be stupid.”

    Should he call first?    Should he go back to his apartment first, shower and change and make himself presentable? Should he write something down, set a plan down in ink and paper? Should he practice?

    “Practice what?” Adam said out loud, and groaned.

    He stopped in Red Deer and ate two veggie burgers and had a meat craving that made him want to punch himself in the face.

    He ate an overpriced bag of corn nuts instead and the stupid prices at the gas station had none of the charm of the stupid prices at an airport.

    He stared at the sky. He tried to make himself breathe. He didn’t throw up, but he did yell “UGH” at the sky and bang his head once against his car and then he was back on the road. Making plans. Making a plan. A plan of attack. A confession?

    His plans sounded like this: “Stupid. _Stupid_. Just—so—fucking _stupid_.”

    There was something nice about cursing at his windshield and letting his brain slowly fry in its own juices.

    Twice he changed his mind.

    Twice he thought about calling Keith and saying: “Look what you did.”

    And four times he thought about calling Takashi and saying: “Whatever happens, don’t let me in.”

    He did none of these things. He swore a lot. He drove too fast until he panicked at a flash of lights in his rear view mirror and experienced a horrifying, borderline hallucination of a horrifying, too expensive speeding ticket. He stopped speeding. He swore some more.

    But it would be okay. If nothing else, he could always—leave. Stick with his plan, which was a good and solid plan and the product of many hundreds of dollars of application fees and many hours of PhD program research and many daydreams about a new life in Vancouver, or Toronto, or freaking Ottawa or Halifax. Far away from his mother, from his ex, from his memories.

    The only thing he’d take with him would be Keith. And apparently Lance. And their hamster.

    Not a bad life.

    “Stupid,” Adam hissed and hunched over the steering wheel. “I’m so fucking stupid. Stupid. Stupid.”

    What did Keith know? Nothing. Keith was a baby. Keith was—projecting or something. Indulging in fantasies that were rubbing off on Adam.

    “Stupid,” he said again as he pulled into the city limits and: “Stupid,” he said as he took the exit towards Takashi’s apartment and: “Stupid,” he said as he made the last turn into the quiet neighbourhood where Keith had mostly grown up.

    And maybe where Adam and Takashi had grown up a little too.

    And he didn’t move.

    Hands sweaty, with his eyes feeling like they were trying to bulge their way out of his skull, Adam clutched the steering wheel and stared straight ahead and saw absolutely nothing. Stupid seemed suddenly inadequate to describe the—the—the stupidity of what he was doing, or what he was trying to do.

    “What am I doing?” Adam said and thunked his forehead against the steering wheel. “Ugh.”

    He could go home. Crawl into his bed and drink the wine sitting in his fridge and eat the box of chocolates he’d had since last Christmas because he was still half-convinced that Keith would show up at any moment and eat him out of house and home and Keith loved stupid chocolate-covered cherries for whatever stupid reason he did. It was a nice fantasy and he thought he could feel the warmth of his blankets now.

    Adam leaned back and stared straight up and counted to ten and muttered to himself: “‘If you’re sure,’ he said. Jesus.”

    And he got out of the car.

    Each step felt a little like when he had to talk himself into getting on a rollercoaster, or watch a scary movie, or eat something weird: a rapid chant of _just do it just do it just do it._  His hands were still sweaty and he fumbled with the key to the building and he stumbled a bit over a crooked mat and he twitched waiting for the elevator and thought about just running up the stairs.

    He had other fantasies.

    Takashi, opening the door and taking one look at him and just saying: “It’s about time.”

    Takashi, half-asleep on the couch and groggily asking him what was wrong.

    Takashi, with the grey starting to speckle his hair and the glasses he needed sometimes to read sliding down his nose and the smile that hadn’t changed since they were teenagers bright on his lips.

    “Seventeenth floor,” intoned the elevator woman and Adam re-experienced a vivid memory of Keith and Shiro on either side of him trying their best to imitate the voice.

    “Seventeenth floor,” said twelve-year-old Keith in Adam’s memory, and then deepening his voice: “Seventeenth floor.”

    The carpet muffled the sound of his footsteps and he felt a little like he was passing through a dream and then there he was, in front of Takashi’s door and clutching the key and feeling the curve and sharp edges of it dig into his skin. He knew he could just open the door, just walk right in, and Takashi would sigh and tell him that privacy was a thing but be happy to see him all the same. And Takashi would say: “How’s Keith?” And Adam would reply: “Good,” because he was, and they could fall into easy conversation because that was the way life was now.

    Adam shoved the key back into his pocket and knocked three times on the door: one, two, three.

    Terror, and panic, and irritation made him want to run. Just burst into the stairwell and pretend that none of this was happening and carry on as he had been. And Adam thought he was afraid.

    The door opened.

    “Adam,” Takashi said, and Adam let himself think without guilt for the first time in a decade that Takashi was handsome and his smile was soothing.

    His stomach flipped.

    “Hi,” he said and pushed around Takashi before his nerve could die. “I’m back.”

    “Welcome back,” Takashi said, sounding too amused for Adam’s taste and also just amused enough for Adam’s taste.

    Fuck.

    Fuck it all!

    Fuck.

    Takashi shut the door and Adam started to kick off his shoes and then Takashi said: “Adam, I have someone—“

Down the hall, a man appeared.

Adam’s stomach dropped.

“You must be Adam,” said the man.

Adam was suddenly stuck. Hot shame prickled over his skin, and a little bit of irritation that he knew—he _knew_ wasn’t justified. He thought he might be gaping. Or snapping his teeth.

Like it was this handsome guy’s fault, with his beard and his bright eyes and nice haircut.

He whirled away and frowned at Takashi.

“Yes, this is Adam,” Takashi said, the amusement back in his voice. “Adam this is—”

Adam whirled away again. “I need to borrow him,” he said to the man and heard Takashi sigh behind him. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder for emphasis. “Do you mind?”

And nice-hair-and-beard-guy blinked but kept smiling and Adam thought that if he stood in that hallway for much longer something awful and uncalled for would burst out his chest and eat them all. He didn’t wait for a reply and all but scurried into the kitchen, sweating in his coat and feeling ridiculous with the mania in his throat and his socks feeling bulky on his feet.

From the hall he heard: “It’s okay” and “I’ll see you later” and “Make it up to me” and it was a little too much for his melting, idiot brain to take. Adam stepped up to the kitchen sink, pulled off his glasses, ran the water as cold as it would go and ducked his head under the stream. It didn’t quite block out the conversation in the hall but it gave him something to listen to, to distract himself with, and it calmed some of the burning behind his ears and at the back of his neck. The guilt didn’t fade but should it? Where did he get off, storming into his ex’s apartment with a confession on his lips and the ex’s new boyfriend hanging out nearby?

Ugh.

Takashi turned off the tap and the shock of it, the shock of his arrival, was much worse than the shock of the cold water.

“Adam,” Takashi said.

Adam didn’t move. He blinked at his blurry vision of the bottom of Takashi’s impeccably clean sink and he let the water dribble down his face and off his hair: drip drip drip. Takashi was quiet next to him, not sighing or laughing or speaking; he hardly seemed to breathe.

Adam lifted his head, slowly, and felt for his glasses. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I shouldn’t have—”

“I would have asked him to go anyway,” Takashi interrupted lightly. “Since you’re obviously losing your mind.”

Obviously.

“Yeah.”

“What’s going on?” Takashi paused. Adam slipped on his glasses. “Did you fight with Keith?”

Yes.

No.

“Sort of,” Adam said. “But that’s not—” He broke off with a sigh and pushed away from the counter. He dragged his fingers against the familiar countertop and felt again like running, with his back to Takashi and his heartbeat loud in his ears. “We’re not fighting.”

“You two are so strange. It’s very stressful.”

“Sorry,” Adam muttered and shrugged in his coat.

“You aren’t.”

“Yeah, I take it back.”

“What’s going on?”

He sounded impatient, now, and a little worried. Adam supposed that was reasonable.

He turned back and Takashi frowned at him.

“I need to talk to you,” Adam said eventually.

Takashi nodded. “Okay.”

Adam opened his mouth and nothing came out. He looked at his feet. He looked at the ceiling. He huffed a huge sigh. And then: “We didn’t fight. Keith yelled at me a little—”

“He _what_?”

“—but that’s fine. Whatever. It wasn’t really yelling. I’m just bugging him even though he’s not here but I’m a little hurt. Whatever.”

“Adam—”

“The thing is,” Adam said, growing a little louder. He launched into his stuttered form of pacing, his ears cold and his hands twitching as he spoke. “The thing is—well—you know—”

“ _Adam_ —”

“He just thinks he knows everything now, yeah? He just—goes off and he starts getting his education and he—whatever—he meets a nice boy and he gets caught up in said nice boy’s eyes and now Keith thinks he knows things—”

“You liked Lance, then.”

Adam stopped and whirled around, sliding a little in his socked feet. “Yes,” he said gravely and ignored the twitch of Takashi’s smile. “But you know who else likes Lance?”

“Keith?”

“ _Keith_. Keith!” The pacing resumed. “He’s—smitten. Did you see? That boy is—”

“Smitten.”

“Yes.”

“Yes,” Takashi said and Adam chose to ignore the way Takashi watched him pace. “I saw that.” Another pause. “He loves him.”

“And now he thinks he knows everything.”

“I’m not following.”

Adam stopped again. His hair continued to drip, drip, drip. He stared at his feet and he counted to ten and he turned, slowly, to look back at Takashi and he saw Takashi looking back at him and, very slowly, the world started to turn underneath him.

“We raised a kid together,” Adam said.

Takashi blinked. He leaned back against the counter, the movement deliberate and thoughtful in the way that only Takashi could be. “Yeah,” he said eventually. “We did.”

“You and me,” Adam continued. “You and me and Keith. I left and we still—we still wound up a family.”

“Yeah. We did.”

“I was worried,” Adam said and pushed a hand through his hair. “You know? When Keith was leaving and then when he left. I was really, really worried that if he wasn’t here— I guess I thought him being gone would clarify, I don’t know, things.”

“And did it?”

Adam counted his breaths.

One. Two. Three. Four.

“Yeah,” he managed eventually. He turned away. He turned back. He turned away again and then with renewed energy: “There was a man here.”

Takashi coughed. “Don’t say it like that.”

“There was a _man_ and he was _here_ with _you_.”

“Why are you like this—”

“There was a man,” Adam continued, his voice growing louder again and he wanted to stop himself but the train was well out of the station and barrelling down the tracks and— “And he was here and he was definitely here with and for you and I saw him and I knew that. I should have thought ‘ah fuck, guess I’ll go home.’ But instead I told him to leave.” He paused. “I told him to leave.”

Takashi didn’t reply. He touched his chin, and then lowered his hand and shoved it in his pocket, pulled it back out and touched his chin again. Like he was restless, or nervous, or like Adam was making him nervous.

“I left,” Adam said and he felt a little like he was choking but his voice came out strong and steady and sure and he went with it. “I left over a decade ago.”

“You didn’t go far,” Takashi said, his smile making a twitchy reappearance.

“That’s what Keith said.”

“He’s right.”

“But I didn’t stay for you, and that’s what I told him. I didn’t go far because I—”

“You stayed for Keith,” Takashi said, soft. “I know.”

“And then Keith left.”

And Takashi, still smiling, said: “And now you’re leaving.”

Slowly, slowly, the world kept spinning and here Adam was again, in Takashi’s kitchen with his heart pounding and fear churning in his gut.

“I’ve forgiven myself,” Adam said. “I’ve forgiven you. I’ve moved on.”

“Yeah.”

“Part of that was—maybe—realizing that forgiveness wasn’t quite the right thing but it’s what I had. It’s what I made.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll always have Keith,” Adam said, and somewhere along the line his voice broke a little. “No matter where I go or where he goes I’ll always have Keith and he’ll always have me.”

Takashi’s eyes were soft on him, his smile that soothing smile that Adam knew he loved. “Did you tell him that?”

Adam scoffed. “Of course.”

Takashi shook his head but his smile remained and brightened just a little. “Good.”

“This isn’t about Keith,” Adam said. “He’s grown up and left us and I still don’t want to go.”

He saw the pieces fall into place for Takashi. He saw a little terror in his eyes and felt a lot more in his stomach and he saw himself at the edge of a cliff he’d never seen staring down at an ocean that didn’t exist and he heard himself say: _just do it just do it just do it_.

“I should have planned this better,” Adam muttered. “I should have—planned this. Period.”

“Adam—”

“Marry me,” he blurted.

Takashi blinked.

Adam frowned.

And he watched Takashi’s shoulders slump and his lips part and panic roared through Adam. “Adam,” Takashi started.

Adam raised both hands and sucked in a breath. “Just wait,” he said in a gust. “Just—let me make a fool of myself for a little longer, okay?”

Takashi breathed out through his nose and the huffing sound of it was loud in the kitchen. “You’re scared. I get it.”

“Yeah,” Adam said. “Yeah. I’m terrified. But just listen. Please.”

Takashi barely moved and didn’t reply. He flattened his hand against the top of the cupboards under the sink, like that was grounding him, and the fear grew, and grew, and grew in Adam.

But it was permission enough.

He spread his fingers, palms out, and shrugged. “I don’t want to pick up where we left off,” he muttered. “I’m not saying that. Where we left was—it. That was the end. I just want—fuck, Takashi, we could be something new. Keith left and I wanted to leave, too, because I’m scared and I’m stupid and I think you’re kind of stupid too—”

“Hey—”

“—because I think you love me, and you were going to let me leave and, like, really leave this time because I want to run because I love you. Not—you, like the you I wanted to marry ten years ago, but the you right now. Right-now-you, with your bad jokes and your reading glasses though who knows what the hell you’re reading, and maybe I gave you _Middlemarch_ because I had this stupid idea that it’s all about being able to let go of misled loves or something—”

“I haven’t finished it.”

Adam frowned.

Takashi shrugged.

“It’s a big book,” he muttered. “It’s kind of boring.”

“It’s a love letter,” Adam said, or spat, and he wanted to say it lovingly and slow and with a whole pile of softness but, fuck, he wasn’t Keith and his brain wasn’t working and— “It’s a goddamn love letter, Takashi, and I thought it was a farewell but it’s not.”

“A seven hundred page novel is _not_ a love letter.”

“You are so—bad at listening—” Adam groaned. “I gave it to you _years_ ago.”

“I’m not going to tell you to stay,” Takashi snapped and Adam turned away. “We ended a long time ago and a book you left me when _Keith was thirteen_ —”

Ah.

So they both counted their years in Keith’s. In the Keiths they saw and met and lost. In the chances they had and wasted and pretended to forget.

“Yeah.” Adam whirled back into his pacing, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. “And then we raised a kid and we grew up and I’m pretty sure we fell in love again and it’s pretty fucking annoying—”

“Adam—Jesus, what do you want from me?”

And that made Adam stop again and he stared ahead and he dug his fingers into his palms.

He turned around.

He could see that Takashi was clenching his jaw, grinding his teeth, glaring with all the bad habits he had given to Keith. The tiny expressions of his anger, or his panic, or his frustration, that Adam still knew so well.

“I want forever,” Adam said. “I want forever with you. We raised a kid together and I want to grow old together and I—” He stopped. He threw back his shoulders. He raised his chin. He took a deep breath in, and he said: “I want to marry you.”

And just like that, the building tension in the room seemed to freeze and snap and fall away and leave Adam cold.

He drooped.

Takashi looked away.

“Okay,” Adam said. “You can say ‘no’ now.”

Takashi drummed his fingers against the cupboard door.

“So what—” he grunted. “I say ‘no’ and you—I don’t know, you vanish? You go across the country and I get, what, messages from Keith saying that you’re still alive?”

And the cold spread along Adam’s shoulders and down his arms and straight to his palms and his aching fingers. “No,” he breathed. “No.”

“‘cause this feels like a corner.”

“It’s not.”

“That’s what it _feels_ like.”

“You’re stuck with me,” Adam snapped and Takashi’s fingers stilled against the cupboard and the kitchen was abruptly quiet. “We’re family, okay? Yeah, I’ll go—I’ll go wherever the hell I feel like going. But I’m still—” Adam broke off and grimaced. He shook his head. “I’m still Keith’s—affer, I guess.”

Takashi finally looked at him again, squinting. “His what?”

“Don’t ask.” Adam waved a hand. “I’m always going to be Adam and you’re always going to be Takashi, that’s all I’m saying.” Another pause. “I’m not trying to back you into a corner.”

“I’m Shiro to most people,” Takashi said flatly. “You stubborn jerk.”

Adam shrugged.

They were quiet for a moment. Adam began to digest his disappointment. He began to think: _I’ll be alright_ ; and then: _we’ll be alright._  He thought he’d be able to say to Keith: _I tried_ , and maybe Keith wouldn’t be too sad.

Maybe he’d make the long drive back and break into Keith and Lance’s apartment again and eat all their food and Keith would complain until they all felt better.

“Okay,” Takashi said.

Adam blinked. He tilted his head.

They looked at each other.

“Wait,” Adam said.

“Okay,” Takashi said again and Adam said “ _Wait_ ” and then Takashi was taking two long strides across the kitchen to him and gripping the open collar of Adam’s jacket tightly.

“Oh,” Adam said, and then Takashi was kissing him and a missing piece of his soul slotted back into place.

Adam flailed a bit. “Wait,” he said. “ _Wait_ —”

“Oh my god.”

“You—have to break up with your bearded boyfriend. And you’ve got to—” Adam swallowed. “You’ve got to actually say what I think you’re saying or I’m going to panic into an early grave—”

“Not my boyfriend,” Takashi sighed and the sheer relief of it all made Adam’s knees turn to jelly. “Let’s get married.”

“I think I’m going to fall over.”

“You got too excited.”

“I stressed myself out.”

“Yes,” Takashi said and leaned in and smiled against Adam’s lips. “I noticed.”

 

***

 

Adam slept more soundly than he had in years.

The tense, constant anxiety of the day probably had something to do with it.

And maybe that Takashi was next to him, snoring lightly.

 

***

 

His brain woke him up at two in the morning.

He sat straight up.

“Takashi,” he said, jostling Takashi. “We need to go.”

Takashi swore and rolled away.

But Adam was persistent.

 

***

 

(Keith was halfway through a banana and halfway to being late for morning practice when the knocking started. He stared down at his coffee. He looked up at the clock in their kitchen. He looked back down at his coffee.

He continued eating his banana.

The knocking persisted.

Sighing, Keith shoved the rest of the banana into his mouth and tossed the peel on his way to the door, his cheeks bulging. The knocking continued, and he had an irritated suspicion that he knew what was happening but he also figured that no-one— _no-one_ —was that ridiculous or crazy.

“Oh, fuck off,” he said when he opened the door, but it sounded like muffled gibberish with his mouth full of banana.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Shiro said around a yawn, peering over Adam’s shoulder.

“Hi,” Adam said. “Move.”

“Sorry,” Shiro added. “I’m going to sleep on your couch.”

Adam shoved Keith out of the way, Shiro following him more sedately (drowsily), and Keith swallowed down the rest of his breakfast and wiped his mouth and closed the door and then—

“What—” Lance paused at the other end of the hall, wearing only a pilfered pair of Keith’s sweats and holding Red in one hand and rubbing his eyes with his other.

“Put on a shirt,” Keith—yelled.

“You literally just said, and I quote, ‘don’t ever—‘”

“Hi Lance,” Adam said cheerfully.

Lance woke the rest of the way up. “Hi,” he said. Or, squawked. He slapped his Red-less hand to his neck. “Okay. Bye.” He whirled around and slammed the bedroom door shut behind him.

Shiro was staring at the ceiling. Adam turned to smile wide at Keith.

Keith prayed for death.

“Hickey,” Adam observed with a vague gesture towards his own neck.

“Please kill me,” Keith said.

Shiro sighed so loud Keith felt it in his bones, and then wandered towards the living room. Keith heard him fall onto the couch and groan, and a moment later there came the sound of very clear Shiro-snores.

“What have you done to him?” Keith said, trying to scrub the blush from his cheeks. “Why are you here? I—have practice!”

Adam tilted his head. “I should wake him up,” he said thoughtfully. “Tell him to call work.” He beamed at Keith. “You should skip practice.”

“I can’t,” Keith snapped. “I skipped Saturday.”

“Yikes. Don’t tell Shiro.”

“I had a stressful weekend, okay!”

“Yeah,” Adam sighed. “Me too. But I think it worked out alright.”

Lance reemerged down the hall, wearing a sweater and still holding Red and looking flustered and awake. “What’s going on?” he asked, his voice a little high-pitched with a mix of panic and embarrassment.

But Keith was squinting at Adam and Adam was smiling at him.

“What did you do?” Keith asked.

“You get to gloat for—” Adam checked his watch. “Ten minutes. Maximum.”

“What’s happening?” Lance moaned.

“What am I gloating about?” Keith said.

“I wanted you to know first,” Adam replied, his smile growing. “We’re getting married.”

Keith processed this very slowly and Lance squawked from down the hall and maybe thunked against the wall and Shiro kept on snoring and—

“Okay,” Keith said. “You dragged Shiro out of bed and shoved him in your car and drove all this way to tell me—first.”

“Yeah.”

And the tightness in his throat had returned but it was warm and invigorating and helped his lips twitch into an uncertain smile and Keith said: “Thanks.”

And Adam’s smile grew.)

  
  


   

   

   

**Author's Note:**

> title comes from symbol by adrianne lenker
> 
> and LONG BREATH OUT.
> 
> i waited a long time for this. i hope you enjoyed.


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